US President Donald Trump will attend a NATO leaders' summit scheduled for May, the White House has confirmed.

"The President looks forward to meeting with his NATO counterparts to reaffirm our strong commitment to NATO, and to discuss issues critical to the alliance, especially allied responsibility-sharing and NATO's role in the fight against terrorism," a statement from the White House reads.

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It added that, in addition to the Leaders Meeting, Trump will also host Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House next month, "where they will talk about how to strengthen the alliance to cope with challenges to national and international security," the statement adds.

The April meeting with Stoltenberg has been arranged to prepare for a May 25 summit in Brussels on the "new security environment, including the Alliance's role in the fight against terrorism, and the importance of increased defense spending and fairer burden-sharing."

The announcement of Trump's attendance comes on the heels of a decision by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to skip a NATO foreign ministers' meeting, and instead host Chinese President Xi Jingping later this month, before visiting Russia in April. The State Department has suggested "alternative dates" to NATO for the meeting.